21 Jan 2025

There is need to harness employment opportunities presented by the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) to build a resilient economy.

Speaking during a tour of Serowe Brigade facilities on Monday, the Minister of Higher Education, Mr Prince Maele said vocational skills played an important role in improving the economy, and their potential to create sustainable jobs could not be overemphasised.

He further said TVET was seen as an essential pillar for creating income generating projects, adding that he valued TVET hence the mission to traverse the country touring tertiary institutions to see how best the ministry could tackle their challenges.

He said his ministry was well positioned to assist in transforming graduates to create their own employment. He said brigades presented great opportunities for employment creation thus triggering the need to fully utilise such platforms for a better Botswana.

Mr Maele said Serowe Brigade could create employment for its residents if fully utilised, adding that the institution’s farm that sits on 582 hectares was idle and therefore expressed the wish to lease it to young farmers.

The minister also advised brigade to have the state-of-the-art milking parlour facility to facilitate learning process for dairy farming aspirants.

He expressed concern about the 70 hectare chunk of land owned by the Serowe College of Education that  was idling and implored the relevant authorities to put it to good use as land was a resource used for production.

He challenged vocational education providers to produce internationally compliant graduates that aligned to market needs. The minister expressed worry about high fees for accreditation bodies and therefore said there was need for scrutiny to find a long lasting solution to the issue.

He said removing bottlenecks within the TVET institutions would catapult vocational education to greater heights in the country.

For his part, the MP for Serowe South, Mr Leepetswe Lesedi lauded the minister for the visit pointing out it would breathe life into TVET colleges to become benchmarking models.

Mr Lesedi said government valued the role TVET institutions played in the economy. He  implored Batswana to tap into the opportunity presented by TVET.

Serowe North MP, Mr Baratiwa Mathoothe thanked the minister for his vision of utilising idle land, pointing that the move would turn such land into investment opportunities.

He said employment creation was a challenge and the idle land utilisation initiative would motivate each and every constituency to generate employment.

Mr Mathoothe who is Assistant Minister of Trade and Entrepreneurship spoke of the need to produce market compliant graduates, adding their education should be aligned with the demands of the market to give Botswana a better direction.

Botswana Sectors of Educators Trade Union (BOSETU)representative, Mr Releseng Kaang said that over the years the work force has been singing the same song with regard to their grievances but to no avail.

He thus expressed optimism that the new administration would address their concerns citing the incomplete organisational structure, dilapidated staff houses, the introduction of scarce skill allowances for brigade lecturers, low invigilation fees, lack of skill enhancement short courses for the work force, stagnation of corporate or support staff, reimbursement of staff after studies and unclear criteria for promotions, among others.

The Student Representative Council’s Mr Ditiro Pipo said programmes offered at brigades were more theoretically oriented than practical.  

He said students who pursued programmes at TVET colleges were more talented in practical pathway than theories and therefore wished the curriculum could equip students with hands-on experience. ENDS